Ron Burgundy: ___, that escalated quickly

Another movie quote Mandela Effect which turned into a meme.

The 2004 movie "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" starring Will Ferrell has him at one point saying "That escalated quickly", but what word did he use first? Many remember "Boy", but the movie today's shows he sad "Well".

It wouldn't be such a big deal if it hadn't become an internet meme now, appearing in such crazy guises as Hilary Clinton, R2D2 etc and regularly pops up as a comedy parody, so you'd have thought the actual quote would be pretty well established.

The meme ... escalated quickly

A look at Google Trends for "That escalated quickly" shows the sudden meteoric rise, and subsequent decline, of references to the term on the internet. This is certainly down to the meme. There's no trigger which caused a line from a movie released in 2004 to suddenly spike in 2012 apart from it being a general phrase which was found to be applicable to so many different situations it became a cut and paste favorite.

On-air rivalry

The movie shows how the main anchorman initially welcomes a new female reporter who gradually begins to eclipse him on air - all the while taking place in the hugely male-dominated world of 1970's news TV. Various comedic antics ensure, including his being unwittingly made to read profanities from an auto cue live on air.

Confusing a meme's prefix is probably at the edge of what's normally considered a Mandela Effect, because here the word "Boy" or "Well" isn't part of the meme itself. It's one of those condensed synopsis kind of Mandela Effects, where a single scene becomes representative of the whole work, and it doesn't really matter if the details of that scene are perfectly correct to service this purpose.